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23LSO-0321
2023
STATE OF WYOMING
23LSO-0321
Numbered
2.0
SENATE FILE NO. SF0162
Grace Smith Medical Freedom Act.
Sponsored by: Senator(s) Biteman, Brennan, Hutchings, Salazar and Steinmetz and Representative(s) Andrew and Jennings
A BILL
for
AN ACT relating to education; requiring state and county health officers to grant waivers to immunization requirements for K-12 students upon request; requiring state and county health officers to grant mask mandate waivers for K-12 students upon request; and providing for an effective date.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1
.
W.S. 21
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4
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309(a) and by creating a new subsection (e) is amended to read:
21
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4
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309.
Mandatory immunizations for children attending schools; exceptions; mask mandate waivers.
(a)
Any person attending, full or part time, any public or private school, kindergarten through twelfth grade, shall within thirty (30) days after the date of school entry, provide to the appropriate school official written documentary proof of immunization.
For purposes of this section, documentary proof of immunization is written certification by a private licensed physician or his representative or by any public health authority, that the person is fully immunized.
Documentation shall include month, day and year of each required immunization received against vaccine preventable disease as designated by the state health authority.
No school administrator shall permit a student to attend school for more than thirty (30) calendar days without documentary proof of immunization.
If immunization requires a series of immunizations over a period of more than thirty (30) calendar days, the child shall be permitted to attend school while receiving continuing immunization if the school administrator receives written notification by a private licensed physician or his representative or by a public health official, specifying a written schedule for necessary immunization completion within the medically accepted time period. Waivers
to the administration of required immunizations for preventable diseases
shall be
authorized
granted
by the state or county health officer upon submission of
a
written
evidence of religious objection or medical contraindication to the administration of any vaccine
request by the child's parent, legal guardian or other adult person authorized to consent to medical treatment of the child seeking the waiver. The state or county health officer shall grant the requested immunization waiver within seven (7) business days of receiving the request for waiver
. In the presence of an outbreak of vaccine preventable disease as determined by the state or county health authority, school children for whom a waiver has been issued and who are not immunized against the occurring vaccine preventable disease shall be excluded from school attendance for a period of time determined by the state or county health authority, but not suspended from school as provided in W.S. 21
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4
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305.
Children excluded from school attendance under this section shall not be counted in the aggregate number of pupils absent as defined in W.S. 21
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13
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101(a)(i).
(e)
The state or county health officer shall grant waivers to any mask mandate imposed on any person attending, full or part time, any public school, kindergarten through twelfth grade, upon submission of a written request by the child's parent, legal guardian or other adult person authorized to consent to medical treatment of the child seeking the waiver. The state or county health officer shall grant the requested waiver within seven (7) business days of receiving the request for waiver.
Section 2
.
This act is effective immediately upon completion of all acts necessary for a bill to become law as provided by Article 4, Section 8 of the Wyoming Constitution.
(END)
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SF0162